LOWER LAKE – Wildfires blazing in several Western states Sunday chewed up forests and threatened homes but were most numerous in Northern California where dozens are raging and setting off evacuations.
Wildfires are also burning in Washington and Oregon.
The biggest California wildfire — raging in the Lower Lake area

LOS ANGELES – Police are asking for the public’s help in finding an Albanian athlete who disappeared after participating in the Special Olympics.
The Los Angeles Police Department says 44-year-old Andi Gusmari was last seen Saturday at about 8:30 p.m. at the University of Southern California.
According to investigator

LONG BEACH – Electricity has been restored to all Southern California Edison customers in downtown Long Beach who had been without power since an underground vault fire and explosion, the second such outage in as many weeks, officials said today.
However, the transition from temporary generators to Edison's permanent electrical net

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – A spike in suicides and attempted suicides has prompted corrections officials to step up oversight at a California women’s prison as inspectors try to pinpoint the cause of the troubling increase.
Four women have killed themselves at California Institution for Women in San Bernardino County in the last 18

WASHINGTON – A long-awaited study requested by Congress concludes that enlarging Shasta Dam in California by 18.5 feet is technically and economically feasible, though the Bureau of Reclamation declined to make a formal recommendation to move ahead with the project.
The study found the most viable expansion option would cost an est

ADIN -- Wildfires blackened the golden hills of California on Friday and turned tragic when the U.S. Forest Service announced the death of an agency firefighter.
The agency said David “Dave” Ruhl of Rapid City, S.D., died Thursday while responding to the Frog Fire northwest o

SAN DIEGO – A group of San Diego residents is studying the feasibility of adding a barrier to the city’s iconic Coronado Bridge to prevent people from jumping to their deaths. Since the bridge to popular Coronado Island opened in 1969, about 300 people have committed suicide there, jumping from the 200-foot span and into San

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. – Officials say a young female golden eagle rescued by firefighters and rehabilitated in a wildlife hospital died after being struck by a wind turbine three months after being released into Northern California’s wild. Lindsay Wildlife Experience officials tell the Contra Costa Times two power workers foun

LOWER LAKE, Calif. – Blazes raging in forests and woodlands across California have taken the life of a firefighter and forced hundreds of people to flee their homes as an army of firefighters continue to battle them from the air and the ground.
Twenty-three large fires, many sparked by lightning strikes, were burning across Norther

HIGHLAND – Two men were arrested in the killing of a 4-year-old California boy who was hit by gunfire intended for someone else while playing with a stuffed animal in a relative’s front yard, authorities said Friday.
Darron Daniels, 20, and Maurice Kelley, 25, were taken into custody for investigation of murder and attempted

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – Maggie Smith’s character on “Downton Abbey” might find the pomp and circumstance uncomfortable, but the PBS show is getting its own float in the Rose Parade, two days before the premiere of its sixth and final season on Jan. 3. PBS president and CEO Paula Kerger made the announcement Saturd

SAN FRANCISCO – A 15-year-old boy charged as an adult with raping and killing his 8-year-old neighbor in California is too young to understand what he is accused of doing, youth advocacy groups said Friday.
They say the district attorney should have asked a judge whether suspect Adrian Jerry Gonzalez is fit to stand trial as an adu

LOS ANGELES – Federal regulators have closed a case that questioned whether Southern California Edison violated government rules when it installed faulty equipment at the now-closed San Onofre nuclear power plant.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission ruling Thursday concluded the issue is no longer relevant since the coastal reactors,

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge on Friday blocked the release of any recordings made at meetings of abortion providers by an anti-abortion group that previously revealed secretly recorded videos of a Planned Parenthood leader.
Judge William Orrick in San Francisco issued a temporary restraining order against the Center

LOS ANGELES – As Californians and the communities they live in cut back water use and let lawns turn brown, arborists and state officials are worrying about a potentially dangerous ripple effect: Nearby urban trees going neglected and becoming diseased or dying.
With cities ordered to reduce water use by 25 percent during the state